The invention relates to a honing device and more specifically to a hand held hone having a knife guide which will establish the required angle that a culinary knife is to be sharpened.
In order to keep a premium fine edged knife in carving condition, its edge should be honed with a few strokes on a sharpening steel before each use. The proper technique isn't difficult but it does require practice. For the inexperienced user, it is often difficult to orient the bottom edge of the knife at a 20 degree angle, which is the half-angle of the bottom edge of the knife.
It has been known for years that the proper tool for sharpening "chef's knives" is to use a chef's steel. These honing devices include an elongated narrow cylindrical rod of steel sharpening material and a concentric handle at the top end of the rod with a guard between the handle and the sharpening rod to insure that the user doesn't accidently cut themselves with the knife during the sharpening process.
To sharpen high carbon steel knives with this "chef's steel", the knife is to be drawn over one edge of the sharpener at approximately a 20 degree angle on one side and then on the other side of the knife at approximately 20 degree angle. No means other than what the operator conceives to be a 15 to 20 degree angle was provided. Therefore, the effectiveness of the sharpening varied from operator to operator. A chef would not allow an apprentice to sharpen his knives because it would affect the efficiency of the knives if they were to sharpen them at an angle other than the customary approximately 20 degree angle.
The cutting edge of a fine quality high carbon stainless steel knife has a very fine edge that curls. It curls when you cut and it curls when moisture is introduced. It also curls at random on the left side of the blade and the right side of the blade. With the chef's steel, you rub or burnish against the hard surface of the cutting edge for the purpose of straightening it back out so that it is the same way as when it was manufactured. Five or six strokes on each side was commonly needed to sharpen the knife due to the user's inability to properly align the knife edge at the proper angle to the "steel".
To overcome these deficiencies in the prior art, blade sharpeners such as that of the Graves U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,677 has been designed with guide-guards attached to the opposite ends of an elongated cylindrical sharpening rod. A handle extends outwardly from one of the guide-guards. This blade sharpener has been designed to be used in a horizontal manner.
Another prior art "chef's steel" is disclosed in the Harris U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,106. This honing device has been designed to be used in a vertical position and it has a conical blade guide adjacent the top end of the steel to establish an appropriate angle at which to hold the knife for sharpening.
The prior art sharpening steels still have problems that annoy their users. The horizontal sharpener of Graves has not been very well received. The "chef's steels" that are used in a vertical manner require the use of a hand shake grip and the bottom end of the steel has a tendency to slip or shoot outwardly at times during use. These prior art "chef steels" are also quite heavy.
It is an object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel whose weight is greatly reduced from that of the prior art sharpening steels.
It is another object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel that has structure on the bottom end that prevents it from slipping or shooting outwardly during its use.
It is another object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel that has an outer surface that is as hard or harder than tool steel.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel that has the hone made of aluminum that is hard anodized on its outer surface.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel that has a knob portion at the top of its handle assembly that allows its user to cup the palm of the hand over it.
It is another object of the invention to provide a novel sharpening steel made of several parts that are easily assembled and disassembled.